Training course · Microsoft 365 Copilot · Founders & Startups

Microsoft 365 Copilot for Founders and Startups

Use Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Chat in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams productively, securely and in line with permissions.

Duration
1 day (7 hrs)
Format
Online or on-site
Language
German or English
Participants
open dates or exclusive for your team
Certificate
Certificate of attendance

Overview

“Microsoft 365 Copilot for Founders and Startups” is a hands-on course for roles such as Early-stage founders, Founding teams in incubators and accelerators and Early employees at startups. Rather than learning Microsoft 365 Copilot in the abstract, you work on tasks from your daily routine – with examples, exercises and templates from Founders & Startups.

Microsoft 365 Copilot brings AI right into the applications where your daily work happens: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams. What sets it apart from publicly available chatbots is its grounding in your organisation's data via Microsoft Graph – Copilot can draw on the emails, meetings, chats and documents you already have access to. In this practical day you learn to use that connection deliberately: drafting content from existing files, summarising inboxes and long threads, following up on meetings and generating presentations from Word documents.

You also learn how the licensed Copilot differs from Copilot Chat, when web-grounded and when work-grounded answers make sense, and how to use both prebuilt and your own agents. A central topic is the permission model: Copilot only surfaces what you are allowed to see, so sharing settings in SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams directly determine the quality and security of results. You leave with tested prompts for every Office application and a clear understanding of responsible use within your tenant.

Founders have to juggle many roles with a small team and limited budget: product, sales, marketing, finance, hiring and investor relations. Generative AI acts like an extra team member. It helps with market research and competitor analysis, drafts pitch decks and investor updates, writes landing pages and sales emails, structures customer interviews and supports the financial model. With vibe coding, prototypes, clickable mock-ups and internal tools come together in hours rather than weeks, so hypotheses can be tested in the market much sooner. AI agents automate lead research, onboarding emails or support replies. The key is to combine speed with critical review and to get the legal basics right from day one.

The course is delivered live – either online in a virtual classroom or on-site in our training rooms in Munich, Salzburg, Berlin, Augsburg, Hanover, Bremen, Stuttgart and Kaiserslautern. We can also run it exclusively for your team.

Who is this course for?

  • Early-stage founders
  • Founding teams in incubators and accelerators
  • Early employees at startups
  • Corporate venturing and intrapreneurship teams
  • Solo entrepreneurs with product ideas

Typical challenges we address

  • Little time and few resources for many parallel tasks
  • Hypotheses need to be validated quickly and cheaply
  • Heavy effort for pitching, investor relations and grant applications
  • No in-house experts for legal, finance and development in the early stage

What you will be able to do

  • You use Copilot in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams for your recurring tasks.
  • You write prompts that draw on existing files, emails and meetings as context.
  • You distinguish between Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Chat and choose the right mode.
  • You use prebuilt agents and create a simple agent of your own for your team.
  • Validate business ideas faster with AI through research, interviews and prototypes.
  • Produce pitch decks, investor updates and sales materials efficiently with AI.
  • Build simple prototypes and internal tools through vibe coding and understand their limits.

Course outline

Module 1 Copilot fundamentals and Microsoft Graph
  • Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Chat: capabilities and licensing
  • Grounding in organisational data through Microsoft Graph
  • Switching between web and work context and referencing specific files
  • Prompt structure with goal, context, source and expectations
Module 2 Word and PowerPoint
  • Drafting from existing documents, notes and emails
  • Rewriting, shortening, adjusting tone and summarising text
  • Generating presentations from Word documents or outlines
  • Refining slides, adding speaker notes and sharpening key messages
Module 3 Excel and data analysis
  • Querying tables, spotting trends and highlighting outliers
  • Getting suggestions for formulas, calculated columns and conditional formatting
  • Creating charts and pivot analyses from natural language
  • Sanity-checking results and ensuring data quality
Module 4 Outlook, Teams and agents
  • Summarising long email threads and drafting replies
  • Summarising Teams meetings and extracting action items and open questions
  • Using Copilot Pages and Notebooks for collaborative work
  • Using prebuilt agents and creating your own with Agent Builder
Module 5 Permissions, data protection and governance
  • The permission model: Copilot only shows what you can access
  • Identifying oversharing in SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams
  • Sensitivity labels, data boundaries and GDPR considerations
  • Usage policies, team adoption and measuring impact
Module 6 Practice lab: Founders & Startups
  • Market and competitor analysis
  • Analysing customer interviews
  • Pitch decks and investor updates
  • Prototypes via vibe coding
  • Sales and marketing
  • Grants and business plans
Module 7 Data protection, quality & transfer to daily work
  • Startups must comply with the GDPR, imprint requirements and unfair competition law from the outset, for example for waitlists, newsletters and outreach. For AI-based products, the EU AI Act, copyright in generated content, code licences and the confidentiality of investor and customer data must be considered.
  • Ground rules for safe AI use in your team
  • Checking results: facts, sources, tests and the four-eyes principle
  • Personal action plan for the next 30 days
  • Open questions, outlook and resources for further learning

Practical scenarios from your field

Market and competitor analysis

AI structures market segments, target groups and competitors, derives positioning options and helps identify research sources – figures and facts are then backed up with reliable references.

Analysing customer interviews

Guides for problem interviews are created, notes are analysed for pain points, willingness to pay and quotes, and insights are condensed for the next iteration.

Pitch decks and investor updates

Storyline, slide copy and answers to typical investor questions are developed; regular updates for investors and advisers are generated from KPIs and milestones. Investors stay informed with little effort.

Prototypes via vibe coding

Landing pages, clickable prototypes and simple MVPs are built with AI coding tools to test demand and user behaviour before investing in professional development. Scaling up follows once demand is confirmed.

Sales and marketing

Ideal customer profiles, outreach sequences, website copy and social posts are written for the target audience and prepared in variants for A/B testing. Test results feed straight into the next iteration.

Grants and business plans

AI helps make sense of funding programmes, structure applications and business plans and explain financial assumptions clearly; the figures themselves are checked by an expert.

Prerequisites

Confident everyday use of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams; no prior AI knowledge is required. A startup idea or a role in a young company; no programming skills required.

Technical requirements

A laptop with access to Microsoft 365 via your work account; a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence is ideal for all exercises, while Copilot Chat covers part of the content.

Data protection & compliance

Startups must comply with the GDPR, imprint requirements and unfair competition law from the outset, for example for waitlists, newsletters and outreach. For AI-based products, the EU AI Act, copyright in generated content, code licences and the confidentiality of investor and customer data must be considered.

Suggested dates

All dates are suggestions – your preferred date is always possible.

  • Wed, 25 November 2026 Online Request
  • Fri, 11 December 2026 Berlin Request
  • Wed, 16 December 2026 Online Request
  • Mon, 11 January 2027 Online Request
  • Wed, 20 January 2027 Stuttgart Request
  • Thu, 4 February 2027 Online Request

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Chat?

Copilot Chat is available to many work accounts without an additional licence and answers mainly from web content and uploaded files. The licensed Microsoft 365 Copilot also reaches your emails, meetings and documents through Microsoft Graph and is built directly into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams.

Can Copilot see my colleagues' confidential files?

Copilot respects existing permissions and only surfaces content you can already access yourself. Problems arise when files are shared too broadly – with the entire organisation, for instance. In the course you learn how to spot such oversharing and how to fix it properly together with your IT team.

Do I need prompting experience for this course?

No. We start with the fundamentals of good prompts and practise them directly in the Office applications. What matters is that you are comfortable using Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and Teams day to day. Everything else – from referencing files to working with agents – we build up step by step through realistic tasks.

Can I build an MVP with AI without knowing how to code?

For landing pages, clickable prototypes and simple web apps, yes – often enough to test demand. For a scalable, secure product handling user data and payments, however, you need development expertise. The course shows where that line lies and how to hand prototypes over cleanly to developers.

Can investors tell a pitch deck was written by AI?

Generic copy stands out. What matters is that the storyline, numbers and insights come from your own work. AI helps you structure, sharpen and prepare for tough questions. In the course we practise making your story more compelling with AI without sounding interchangeable.

How much does “Microsoft 365 Copilot for Founders and Startups” cost?

The course costs a flat €949 plus VAT per participant – whether online or on-site. This includes 1 training day(s) with a live trainer, course materials, a lab environment and a certificate of attendance.

Can I suggest my own date?

Yes. Our suggested dates are just a guide. In the request form you can always describe your preferred date or period in free text – we check availability and confirm within one working day.

Is the course online or on-site?

Both are possible: live online in a virtual classroom or on-site in Munich, Salzburg, Berlin, Augsburg, Hanover, Bremen, Stuttgart or Kaiserslautern. We can also run the course exclusively for your team.

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